Amen.
You know, the table talk is so, uh, refreshing because we really do get
to hear how people came in contact with the real Jesus and see that all
of us have come from totally different backgrounds, totally different
lifestyles, but we all have been united to follow the real Jesus together.
Amen.
And that is so special and so encouraging.
And so today, as we dig into the Bible today, we're gonna continue
studying out the Book of Luke.
But I want to ask us a question here before we jump in.
All right.
Raise your hand if you have ever lost something before.
Okay.
Kenny's like, Nope, never lost anything.
I'm responsible.
I don't lose things.
. Okay.
Moses of us have lost stuff, right?
Whether it's your cell phone, your car keys, uh, maybe it's your wallet or maybe
you left a child sometime at church or at school One time I had a funny story.
One time my dad left my sister at church and my mom and dad went home.
Luckily church was only a minute from our house, but I ended up running outta
the house cause I was gonna go save her.
I was like eight years old and my parents like, what are you doing?
Like, she can't even walk back.
What do you get in the car?
? Um, but we all lose stuff, right?
Another time.
Um, I'll share this story here.
I think this is a, a pretty relevant one.
One time my dad lost his car keys, right?
He never liked to lose your car keys.
It's not, not a fun thing.
And he didn't have a, well, actually no, he did have a spare cuz my mom had a set.
But he lost his car keys.
It had like two of the cars on it.
The house key had a like couple keys for the church building all these
different keys on it, and he lost them.
So he had been searching for a few days trying to find his car keys.
Where can I find 'em?
Where are they?
Gets the whole family involved.
We're searching all over the house.
We didn't find 'em for three days, all right?
It took us three days and we're searching the house.
We're looking everywhere, tearing things apart.
Well, and to our shame, we had not taken the time to just say, all right, let's
just take a second and let's just pray.
Let's pray and maybe God will reveal to us what the keys are.
We didn't do that until the third day.
All right, we're gonna confess there.
Not, not very spiritual.
The third day though, at least we did get to it, and we,
we get together as a family.
We're standing there and we're like, all right, let's just take
a moment and let's just pray.
Maybe God will reveal to us where the keys are.
So we say a prayer.
I kid you not.
One minute after we say Amen, my dad gets a phone call.
And it's one of the, the, the members of the church.
And they're like, Hey, how you doing?
My dad's name is Steve, how you doing?
Steve?
And my dad's like, oh, hey, how, how are you doing?
And my dad asked him, so why'd you call me?
And they're like, I have no idea.
. I have no idea why I called you.
And my dad's like, well, that's odd.
Well, I've been looking for my car keys and I can't.
And then he stopped and he was like, the last time I saw my car keys,
I was getting something out of the trunk for this person's husband.
And he was like, and so he runs downstairs, he's like, my
keys have to be in the trunk.
He runs downstairs, opens the trunk, looks through the whole
trunk, can't find the keys.
He's like, oh man, it's not there.
So I'm like, well, look underneath the, the, the spare tire.
Maybe it got slipped under.
He rips up the, the, the mat looks under the spare tire and
there are his keys sitting right there underneath the spare tire.
And he was like, I have no idea how I got.
Oh yeah, there's some keys there.
. He has no idea how they got there.
I guess he left them in the trunk and drove, you know, used my, my mom's keys
drove off and they slipped under there.
Who knows?
But he lost them and then he found them three days later.
All right, so what's the moral of the story?
It ain't fun to lose stuff.
Okay.
Caused a lot of pain, a lot of frustration, but hey, when we
prayed, God provided, all right.
God always provides.
But today, the reason I bring this story up, the reason I bring up this idea of
losing something is because we're gonna be looking and turning in our Bibles
to Luke chapter 15 and talking about how the real Jesus finds what was lost.
Amen.
The real Jesus finds what was lost.
Turn with me, if you will.
To Luke chapter 15.
We're gonna jump into a powerful message here.
I don't have it on the screen, so we gotta go old fashioned and turn to our Bibles.
Amen.
We're gonna read the whole chapter together here of Luke chapter 15,
and we're gonna see three different instances where Jesus explains
a parable of losing something.
Okay.
Luke 15 verse one says, now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering
around to hear Jesus, but the Pharisees and the teachers of the law mutter.
This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.
Then Jesus told them this parable, suppose one of you has a hundred sheep
and loses one of them, doesn't he leave the 99 in the open country and go
after the lost sheep until he finds it?
And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home.
Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, rejoice with me.
I have found my lost sheep.
I tell you that in the same way, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one
sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent.
Or suppose a woman has 10 silver coins and loses one, doesn't she
light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it.
And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together
and says, rejoice with me.
I have found my lost coin.
In the same way I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels
of God over one sinner who repents.
Jesus continued.
There was a man who had two sons.
The younger one said to his father, father, give me my share of the estate.
So he divided up his property between them.
Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had set
off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.
After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole
country, and he began to be in need.
So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country who sent him
to, to, to his fields to feed pigs.
He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating,
but no one gave him anything.
When he came to his senses, he said, how many of my father's
hired servants have food despair?
And here I am starving to death.
I will set out and go back to my father and say to him, father, I have
sinned against heaven and against you.
I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
Make me like one of your hired servants.
So he got up and went to his father, but while he was still a long way
off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him.
He ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
The, the son said to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
But the father said to his servants, quick, bring the
best robe and put it on him.
Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
Bring the fatten calf and kill it.
Let's have a feast and celebrate.
For this.
Son of mine was dead and is alive again.
He was lost and is found.
So they began to celebrate.
Meanwhile, the older son was in the field.
When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing.
So we called one of the servants and asked him what was going on.
Your brother has come.
He replied, and your father has killed the fatten calf because
he has him back safe and sound.
The older brother became angry and refused to go in.
So his father went out and pleaded with him, but he answered his father.
Look, all these years I have been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders.
Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.
But when his son of, but when this son of yours who has squandered your
property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fat and cap for him.
My son, the father said, you are always with me and everything I have is yours.
But we had to celebrate and be glad because the bro, this brother of
yours was dead and is alive again.
He was lost and is found.
Alright, so we got a lot to unpack here, right?
Yeah.
A lot to dig into.
But we see that the chapter begins here with these Pharisees, and we see, sorry,
excuse me here, that it begins with the Pharisees and the tax collector, or I'm
sorry, the tax collectors and the sinners were gathered around with Jesus, right?
And then the Pharisees and the religious people were like, here he is again.
Look what he is doing.
Right.
And we've seen this theme already in the book of Luke.
We've seen this theme that Jesus is welcoming the sinners to eat with him.
And so before we dig into anything, that's a great lesson already in
itself, to remember that Jesus will associate with anybody because
he came to save, not to judge.
Amen.
What we're gonna do right now is we're gonna dig into
the three different parables.
We're gonna look at the three different types of things, or the
three different things that were lost and Jesus' response to them.
And so we're gonna start off here with the sheep.
All right?
Let's talk about sheep for a second.
Sheep are not the smartest animals.
Okay?
Sheep like to wander off.
They kind of drift away from the flock at times, and there's a huge
need for sheep to have a shepherd.
Yeah.
That's why shepherds are a theme.
Okay?
, they have to shepherd the sheep because sheep will start wandering.
And so the first parable of the lost sheep tells us that God cares for each
of his children, and he rejoices when even one turns to him gimme some water.
It says he leaves the 99 sheep to reach out for the lost one to find it, and
then he rejoices when he finds it.
And so we understand that this idea that sheep wander, right?
Sheep like to go and they like to get into problems.
That's why you see lions and bears will attack sheep because
they're easy, an easy prey.
And so there's a need for a shepherd.
You know, I think this can be relevant in our lives and could
be applied to our lives today.
Some of us at times can be a little bit like sheep.
All right?
We can start to wander.
We may start to drift.
We may start to get distracted.
Oh, look at this over here.
I want to go.
I want to go check out this area.
Oh, look at that over there.
That's how sheep are.
Right?
And sometimes we do that spiritually speaking.
We get distracted and we start losing focus of our spiritual walk
with God, and we get distracted.
Whether it's through different things like compromising in our convictions.
Maybe it's a lack of just being disciplined and spending time with
God, reading our Bibles, praying to God, being in a relation, excuse
me, in a relationship with him and desiring to grow closer to him.
Right.
Thank you.
Sometimes maybe it's, we can just forget to invite people into our lives to speak
into what's really going on in our lives and give us wisdom, and give us advice,
and give us discernment on how to think about how to do things in our daily lives.
We need help.
Yeah.
But sometimes we don't invite that and we get away from that.
Maybe it's distractions of this world.
We're gonna talk about that a little bit later.
But maybe we get distracted by the worries of this world, whether it's
financial, whether it's a health issue, and they're real issues.
But we allow that to, to, to take us away and start wandering from
the flock, wandering away from what Jesus really is trying to do.
And that is be in his presence and be united with him.
But we can get away from that sometimes.
You guys with me?
That's sort of how sheep acts.
That's how sheep are.
And we've gotta admit, sometimes when we're in that spot, sometimes we've
gotta admit when we're acting like a sheep and we're starting to wander and
drift and gotta be vulnerable and humble.
Cuz what we see is that Jesus welcomes us back.
Amen.
Jesus wants to have a relationship with you.
Jesus wants to bring you back into His presence regardless of
how far you may have wandered.
Amen.
No matter how far you've wandered, maybe if you look back on your life in the past,
maybe you haven't wandered right now.
Maybe you're close to God right now.
Amen.
That's great.
Amen.
Maybe some of us have wandered, but I know at some point in our lives
we have been distant from God.
It's not a great feeling, but the best feeling is when Jesus welcomes
us back, calls us to repentance, and we get reunited with him.
Amen.
You know, even though we may wander like sheep, Jesus is willing to rescue you.
Amen.
Jesus is willing to rescue you no matter where you've been, where you've gone.
No matter how far, how deep and ugly the sin may feel that you may be in
right now or have been in in the past.
Jesus wants to welcome you back and I hope that message
is clear this morning for you.
No matter where you're at, what you've done, Jesus will welcome you back.
He wants to invite you back like a good shepherd.
He says, I'll leave the 99 to save the one uhhuh.
That's how Jesus views our souls.
He values our souls deeply.
He cares so much for our lives and for our souls.
Amen.
Brothers and sisters, let's not forget, no matter how far we may wander,
he'll always come searching for us.
Let's look at the next parable here.
The parable of the lost coin, right?
And we see that this idea of the lost coin is that this lady had, I believe it says,
it says she had 10 silver coins, right?
Put a quarter up there.
Best we can do, right?
For, for our relate.
We don't go by coins.
Okay?
Let's say 10.
$1,000 bills.
How about we say that you lose a hundred dollars bill, you're gonna go,
whoa, I better look for that, right?
I'm gonna tear apart the house and search for that thing.
Right, and it says, doesn't she light a lamp?
Sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it.
Kind of like how my dad lost his car keys, right?
We had to tear apart the whole house to find those car keys.
You know, the second parable of the lost coin, it shows us that
every soul is significant and valuable to God, even though it
may seem insignificant to us, okay?
Even though it may seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, sometimes
we can discount things and sometimes we neglect the value of even our own souls.
Sometimes we neglect the value when we begin to value things of this world,
kind of like we talked about earlier, and we allow ourselves to get stuck
into patterns of this world, right?
There's a lot of patterns in this world that we may get stuck in in our daily
lives, and we allow ourselves to drift into that cuz we're no longer seeing the
value of our soul that Jesus has for us.
And we start viewing it from a worldly perspective.
Romans 12 verse one says, do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is his good,
pleasing, and perfect will will.
Let me ask you this morning, what may be some of the patterns of this
world that influence your life?
What is it that may influence you?
I think some of us don't realize it sometimes.
How much the world really is influencing us.
Yep.
This world has a strong pull, a strong force, a spiritual force that's
trying to pull us away from Jesus.
You know, we can get influenced by social media.
Yeah.
TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube.
How many am I missing?
Any of Be real.
All right.
That's a new one.
We allow these and are these bad things in nature?
I think they can be used for good.
So I'm not here to bash social media.
I'm here to talk about how it can influence us to not be like Christ.
Yeah.
Talk about and when we're on it too much, when we're consuming our lives
with it on a daily basis, rather than consuming ourselves with the word of God.
Okay.
Then we start drifting and we become lost, like a lost coin underneath the
couch, getting all dusty and dirty.
Because we're not close to Jesus.
We're not seeing the significance of being close with him.
Maybe for some of us it's politics.
Oh, the election's coming up next year.
Yeah, I said it.
It's coming up.
Past two years, been relatively quiet.
How's it gonna be in a year?
Things are gonna start influencing us.
We're gonna see things on the news.
We're gonna see things on, on the internet.
We're gonna hear from our neighbors.
Are we gonna allow that to shape our view of Christ and his church?
Are we gonna allow that to shape the way we see this lost world?
Or are we gonna allow Jesus and his word to shape us?
Maybe for some of us, it's our jobs.
It's maybe making money.
I think this, this can be a hard one.
I think for me, being a young man in 2023, I want to try to make money.
I have a side business that I do, and it's hard for me sometimes
to not allow that to consume me.
And I just focus on that rather than focus on God's mission.
And I allow money to become something that influences me.
I don't know what it is for you, but we can't allow the patterns
of this world to con control us.
Yep.
We can't conform to this world's patterns, this world's patterns is
gonna lead us back to being lost.
Yeah.
That's a good point.
Come on.
You know Jesus again, he values our souls so much, and when we lose
sight of the value of our soul, we lose sight of the real Jesus.
Jesus begins an unrelenting pursuit for your soul.
When you start to wander and drift, Jesus begins to, to go after you.
You start sending people at you.
I don't know if that's ever happened, where you maybe Ms.
Church and someone calls you up, Hey, I missed you at church.
Where you at?
That's Jesus sending someone to get you.
Come on saying you're wandering.
Now, I'm not saying you Ms.
Church once in a blue moon.
It's not the end of the world, but you get my point.
Yeah.
Jesus will not stop pursuing you, and he will never give up on you regardless
of how long it takes, how ugly it looks, how frustrating it may feel.
How many curve balls are thrown at him.
He ain't giving up because he values your soul so much and he
was gonna find you and save you.
You know the woman who was looking for that lost coin in the
parable, it says she rejoices.
When she finds it, she rejoices.
She's fired up.
I found the coin.
I found the a hundred dollars bill.
You guys would all be fired up if you found your a hundred dollars bill.
You lost.
Yeah, right.
Imagine how much more Jesus feels when his soul is reunited with him.
Shut this thing off.
Here we go.
You guys with me?
Yeah.
So this is the view that Jesus has.
The real Jesus views your life, your soul, in a way none of us could imagine.
He loves you deeply, but we allow ourselves sometimes to not
have the same type of view and value, the same type of things.
Guys, let me just throw this out there.
If we saw the value of our souls the way Jesus saw it, we would
be motivated even more than ever to want to go save other souls.
Yeah.
If we saw, wow, Jesus loves me that much, he would do anything.
Think about how much that should fill us up to go spread.
I love that video we saw, right?
Yeah.
We, we just wanna spread the good news to Christ of Christ, spread it to all of our
neighborhoods, tell all of our coworkers, invite them to a relationship with
Jesus, you know, for the campus students, and we share our faith on campus.
I try not to say, Hey, invite, don't invite 'em to the club.
Of, you know, we have a on-campus club.
Don't invite 'em to necessarily, I mean, sure, bring them to an event
that's great, but invite 'em to a relationship with the Almighty God
who loves you more than anyone.
Amen.
That's what we're inviting him to, is a relationship with Jesus.
Amen.
That's what should motivate us.
The last one here is the Parable of the Lost Son.
Right.
This is a very famous parable here.
We all know, most of us may know sort of the idea and the story behind this one.
Right?
It's that the, the prodigal son, right?
He tells us about god's.
It tells us so much about God's grace and mercy, despite what we do, despite
the, the ugliness we may go through, even in the face of rebellion, in
the face of disobedience, disrespect.
The father waited and looked for that son, says he saw, saw him way
out in the distance, ran up to him.
Hugged him, put a robe around him, treated him with honor.
He didn't deserve it.
None of us deserve the honor that Jesus wants to give.
Yep, that's right.
To all of us.
Yeah.
None of us deserve that.
It's a complete sacrifice that Jesus dying on the cross has given us an
opportunity to be united with him.
It's amazing.
And when we see that sometimes in our lives, I think that God, we may put
God in a box and we may feel like we're restricted and we may feel like we gotta
just follow the, these set of rules.
And you know, as a kid growing up and in the teen ministry, I'm gonna
speak to the teens for a second.
I felt restricted in my relationship with God.
I felt like I had to fit in this box, be a good Christian boy.
My dad was preaching on Sundays.
I had to look good all the time, and I put God into a little box.
I said, I gotta just be this picture perfect disciple of Jesus.
And I didn't allow myself to think outside of the box and think about,
wow, God just wants to know me.
He just wants to be united with me.
I made it about the rules.
I made it about all the stuff you don't do as a Christian, right?
Yeah.
But Christianity's not about all the things you don't do.
You never go ask like the best athlete in the world.
Hey, tell me all the things you don't do to become the best athlete in the world.
That's a weird question.
Yeah.
You ask him, how did you get here?
What'd you do?
What are you doing in our relationship with God?
It's the same thing we're asking.
Or what we're trying to do is we're trying to be in a relationship with him.
What are we doing rather than all the sin we're trying to avoid?
No, it's, man, I just, I just wanna love you.
I just wanna be connected with you.
I just wanna help people with you.
I want to be able to impact souls with you.
When you're thinking that way, it's not about all the things you don't
do, it's about all the things you get to become and do with Christ.
Amen.
Come on, come on.
But that was hard for me to understand.
And I think some of us at times can get enticed by the world's desires.
We can get enticed and we can get pulled and dragged, and we allow
ourselves to believe the lie that life without God can be better.
Mm-hmm.
. And that's just simply not true.
Yep.
We see that through the story of the prodigal son.
We see that he goes and squanders all his wealth, realize it's he's empty.
Says, I gotta go back.
It's the only thing I got.
And again, what do we see this idea of?
Jesus says, I'm gonna take you back.
Not only am I gonna just take you back and make you one of my
servants, I'm gonna anoint you.
I'm gonna give you value.
I'm gonna treat you as though this never even happened.
That's how he views us.
Amen.
Even that's what grace is.
Yep.
Just as if you had never even done it, you never even sinned.
That's what Jesus' grace means for your life, brothers and sisters.
And so as we're closing out here, the message in these three parables,
I hope is very clear to you.
No matter how far we may wander, God always invites us to return to him.
He always invites us to return to him.
But I think this question here is really important.
How do we respond to that invitation?
Come on.
How do we respond to this invitation?
And I think it's really important that we get in touch with this.
Really important, we connect with this this morning.
That we, you consider how you think about this in your daily spiritual walk.
How do you respond to that invitation of being welcomed back to Christ?
Do you take it for granted?
Do you take it in vain?
Do you just continue to do the things you've been doing or do you allow
that to motivate you to change, motivate you to grow, motivate
you to dig deeper in your love for Christ because he showed you love?
First, as we close out, I want to ask a couple questions here.
Are we like the lost sheep?
I don't know where you're at this morning.
Are you like the lost sheep, unaware that you may even need rescuing?
Maybe you've wandered off, maybe you've been drifting little by
little and you don't, you, you're waking up and you're like, whoa,
I didn't even realize where I was.
Maybe some of us are like the lost coin.
neglecting the value of our soul, not seeing it the way Jesus sees it.
And we need to course correct and we need to start seeing
it the way Jesus values it.
And maybe some of us are like the prodigal sun, thinking the grass is greener on the
other side and leaving the father's love.
Maybe some of us are drifting away and we're like, man, it just looks
so much better to go do that.
Oh, I don't have to give as much to the church.
I can just go and do what I want.
Thinking that's gonna fulfill you wherever you're at this morning.
Brothers and sisters, I want us to take a moment to reflect on these questions.
Ask yourself, which one of these am I identifying most with?
Which one is sticking out to me the most?
And consider if we need to turn to God and seek his forgiveness.
Bottom line is we're all imperfect, we're all sinners,
and we all need the grace of God.
So let's take the time to consider man.
Where am I at?
What's really going on?
I wanna encourage you to invite people into your life, to help you
process and think through this, study this out, maybe through looking at
the word of God, talking about it.
This will help you grow and understand and learn more about the real Jesus.
Come on, and let me remind you, even if you have strayed from the path
of righteousness, let's say you've been a Christian for 25 years and
you're starting to wander and drift, even if you're there, God will
always be there to welcome you back.
That is who God is.
God does not hold a record of wrongs against us.
Let's remember that.
Let's, let's focus on that, and he'll welcome you to his loving embrace.
That is who God is.
Amen.
And so, As we close out, we got a prayer for the week.
All right, come on.
Prayer for the week.
I want us to ask God to reveal the ways that you may have
conformed to the world's patterns.
All of us can get stuck in this.
All of us in here, maybe it's, maybe it's social media and you're
starting to let that influence you.
Maybe it's a certain sin that you're, you're giving into whatever it is.
What are the patterns you need to identify and ask God to reveal that to you?
And your prayer for the week is, I want us to identify, or that was the prayer.
This is the action step.
Identify one way that God has rescued you.
This is really important.
It's so important to identify how God really has saved you and rescued
you, so that way you can understand the significance of your soul to God.
And when you allow that to penetrate your heart, now you can
start to help others say Amen.
Amen.
And so let us take heart knowing that we serve a God who never gives up on us.
Never gives up, but instead relentlessly pursues us until we are found.
You know, this was shown to us through no greater action than Jesus
dying on the cross for our sins.
Amen.
Jesus displayed that physically 2000 years ago by dying for your sins.
He loves you, he values your soul, and he wants to welcome you back.
Let's say a word of prayer and we'll take communion together.
Lord, thank you so much for this morning and this time to be able
to dig into your word a little bit, to be able to, to recognize
that you save those who are lost.
God, I'm so grateful that you've saved me.
I'm so grateful that I've been saved from so much heartache, so much
pain, and you've saved so many others in this room from the same thing.
Lord, you've saved so many of us.
And brought us so close to you, God, and I am so grateful for the sacrifice of
Jesus dying for our sins, Lord, the the grace that we've been able to receive,
the mercy, the love God, it inspires and compels us to live for you so that we can
grow your kingdom, that we can grow in our knowledge and love for your son Jesus.
And we can love as many people along this journey as well.
God, we love you.
We thank you that you've revealed to us who the real Jesus is.
We pray that we continue to follow him and connect with him this morning.
And Jesus name I pray, amen.